


Something real that's out of touch

by jijal



Category: BTOB
Genre: Almost Substance, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-21
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23227534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jijal/pseuds/jijal
Summary: "This is nice, too, isn't it?"
Relationships: Jung Ilhoon/Lim Hyunsik
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9
Collections: Les Astres: BTOB Fic Exchange





	Something real that's out of touch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [atemzug](https://archiveofourown.org/users/atemzug/gifts).



Quiet, slow footsteps. Hyunsik’s bag sliding off his shoulder and being dropped to the carpet floor. It’s a dull sound, heavy like every single movement in their apartment has come to be.

“Hey, you.”

Ilhoon can't remember how much time has passed since he sat down at the kitchen table. It’s dark out, and his hands and feet are cold.

He can't remember hearing Hyunsik come home, either.

“Hey.”

The word slips past his lips as if he were on autopilot; he barely feels his mouth move, and his voice isn’t his— doesn’t _sound_ like his, anyway. But he hasn’t spoken a word since Hyunsik left for work in the morning, so maybe he’s simply misremembering. Or hallucinating. The silence likes to fuck with him on the days that seem to drag on forever, the days Hyunsik just doesn’t seem to come home, and the clock is stuck at five to seven.

“You okay?” Hyunsik asks quietly, sitting down on the chair next to Ilhoon. He takes one of his ice cold hands into his, and the difference in temperature sends goosebumps across Ilhoon’s skin. He wonders if it’s as painful for Hyunsik as it is for him. “I’m here. Talk to me.”

One of Hyunsik’s thumbs tracing Ilhoon’s knuckles, Ilhoon tears his eyes away from the stained, dark tablecloth he’s been staring at and directs it onto their hands instead, because he can’t bear to look up at Hyunsik right now. That unsure, worried expression on his face burned into Ilhoon’s memory by now. He’s sick of seeing it.

“Just… feeling weird,” Ilhoon croaks out, and lightly squeezes Hyunsik’s hand. He’s there. Ilhoon exhales, and tries to let some of the tension out along with it. He’s not sure it works, or if he’s even doing it right, but it feels nice to breathe.

“Bad night?”

Bad day. Bad night. That’s not really what it is, Ilhoon thinks. It doesn’t matter what his day was like, or what his night is like. If only it were that simple, _if only it ever ended at midnight_.

Ilhoon nods, anyway, because anything else would to be too complex to try and explain. He could ramble on and on and on, without ever letting Hyunsik understand just a fraction of what he’s feeling. But he doesn’t have to, Hyunsik knows, in a way — in his way, knows all he needs to know, and it doesn't take much to notice; asking is merely a kind of habit.

"Let's go out.”

“No,” Ilhoon says, his voice almost drawn out by the sense of dread inside of him, that overwhelming feeling of exhaustion, sunken into the deepest, darkest layers of himself. “I’m tired.”

Maybe it’s hypocritical, to decline and backtrack now. Hyunsik's doing what Ilhoon told him to on a good day. A better day, anyway. And now Ilhoon can't bring himself to play his part in his own plan. He props up his elbows on the table and buries his face in his hands. He’s done nothing— nothing he can remember all day, and yet, he’s exhausted.

"Just for a walk to get some fresh air. Ten minutes, and we'll be back. Promise.”

Hyunsik insists like the good person he is, and Ilhoon clicks his tongue in defeat, Hyunsik is right, he always is, no matter how badly the prospect of going outside has Ilhoon wanting to bury himself in a sea of blankets on the couch instead.

“Fine,” he mutters, and a big smile spreads across Hyunsik’s face when Ilhoon gets up.

"Put on something warm,” he softly calls after him on his way to their bedroom. “It’s pretty cold out today."

A few minutes later, they step outside into an unusually chilly night as promised. Ilhoon pulls his mask up to his nose and buries both his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, following Hyunsik as he takes off in the direction of a nearby park, if Ilhoon were to guess where they’re going. Not that it matters; Hyunsik travels for the journey, as he likes to put it himself, not for the destination. But even then, he’s barely taking in his surroundings. Instead, he tilts back his head and looks up at the sky above them. Pitch-black and completely still, as if it swallowed all movement, all sound, all life.

“No stars tonight,” he mumbles, searching the big, dark nothingness above them. Ilhoon’s pretty sure Hyunsik would have long walked into a hundred lampposts by now if he didn’t have Ilhoon by his side to pay attention to what’s actually in front of them. It drives him crazy sometimes.

“You never see stars from here,” he retorts, and immediately regrets it when Hyunsik lowers his gaze with a sigh.

“I know. But I’m always hoping.”

Swallowing down a hundred snarky remarks, Ilhoon lets it go and they walk in silence. With each step, he tries to redirect his focus somewhere else, and he remembers to feel his feet inside his shoes, the warmth radiating off Hyunsik’s body next to him and the small breeze ruffling through his hair every now and then. The night is calm, and Ilhoon wishes he could be, too.

A small nudge from Hyunsik has Ilhoon snap back to reality. His eyes focus on what’s in front of him, and he realises he was right, even if Hyunsik’s mind wasn’t made up at the time they left their apartment. They’re at the park they used to go to, back when the days were hot and the evenings still warm, and Hyunsik wasn’t drowning in work.

Ilhoon follows him, and sits down next to him on one the benches, the wood beneath him about as comfortable as their old, creaky kitchen chairs. Hyunsik puts an arm around him, and pulls him close, and Ilhoon lets him, leans into the touch, and rests his head on Hyunsik's shoulder. There’s something comforting about him, so quiet and gentle and soft. Sometimes that’s all Ilhoon needs.

“Are you nervous about tomorrow?” Hyunsik breaks the silence that’s settled between them, softly rubbing Ilhoon’s arm.

“No,” Ilhoon mumbles back, slightly shaking his head and watching the branches of the trees sway with the wind. He’ll stay in tomorrow like he did today, and the day before, and the day before that. Tomorrow will be a day like any other, if he just lets it be, Ilhoon tells himself. He isn’t nervous.

“Do you have a present?”

"Yeah," Hyunsik says, the smile audible in his voice. "Just something small. Like always.”

Ilhoon shifts, and blinks up at Hyunsik from where his cheek is squished flat against his shoulder. “What is it?”

“Why would I tell you?” Hyunsik asks back, an amused glint in his eyes. He scoffs softly. “You’ll… know tomorrow.”

Suppressing an annoyed groan, Ilhoon buries his face in Hyunsik’s jacket. He's come to hate surprises, as cliché as it sounds. Surprises, and presents and cake, and way more attention than usual. Relatives, friends, people he used to work with all texting and calling to say the same exact thing.

He started to hate it when the words no longer rang true.

When birthdays stopped being happy days.

When things got too much too fast, and Ilhoon excused himself to the restroom to no one in particular. His heart was pounding and his hands were shaking and the world around him wouldn’t stop spinning, and maybe he’d had too much to drink, but he wouldn’t have been able to even show up to his own party if he’d been any closer to sober than he was.

It wasn’t the first time, not the second or the third Hyunsik found him sat on the floor with his knees to his chest and the taste of vomit on his tongue ten minutes later — but it would be the last, Hyunsik promised Ilhoon when he got him up and brought him home; he wasn’t angry, or annoyed as much as he was worried. Always worried.

A gust of wind sweeps past them, and sends a shiver down Ilhoon’s spine, and he snuggles up to Hyunsik, who runs a hand through Ilhoon's hair, and pulls the hood of his sweater over his head for him.

"Wasn't this supposed to be a walk,” Ilhoon asks, but it doesn't sound like a question. He doesn't care much for the answer, either. If anything, he’s scared Hyunsik will run out of body warmth and Ilhoon will be left freezing.

"This is nice, too, isn't it?”

Ilhoon scoffs.

“Yeah. No stars, and all,” he mumbles, though he makes sure to take the bite out of it this time. Because Hyunsik didn’t even as much as get to drink a cup of coffee when he came home from his twelve-hour day at work, just to make sure Ilhoon would get out of the house for once. The least he can do is not be an asshole about it, and let Hyunsik wind down.

Hyunsik chuckles, his shoulders shaking a little, and Ilhoon bites back the small smile creeping up his lips, as well. He misses that laugh, the sunshine that comes with it, and the times it so painfully reminds him of. When all they would do is meet between classes to lie down at their spot under one of the biggest, oldest trees on campus with more than enough shade to fit the two of them and share whatever it was they bought for lunch that day. When he’d miss him during lectures and they’d go to Hyunsik’s place in the evening, because it was way closer and Ilhoon was sharing an apartment with his sister, and couldn’t possibly bring a guy back home to her.

They’d stay up way too long, would leave the television running and forget about the half-empty bottles of soju still on the living room floor. Hyunsik would teach Ilhoon how to trust, how to slow down, and Ilhoon would get drunk on his words deep into the night, as much as he got lost in his soothing touches. It’d be hard to get up in the morning, and the couch cushions would leave their skin rubbed sore; it was cheesy and cliché and silly more than anything else, and Ilhoon couldn’t have asked for more.

“What’s on your mind?”

The memories still vivid in his mind, Ilhoon’s heart aches. What he’d give to be able to go back.

“Nothing,” he says, in an attempt to calm down again. Maybe if he said it often enough, he could convince himself. It’d gotten the best of him way too many times.

“Are you sure?” Hyunsik asks again, a little more firm this time.

Ilhoon looks up at him, and their eyes meet. And Hyunsik is there.

Always there.

“I’ll be okay,” Ilhoon says, not for himself, but for the both of them this time. “I’m okay.”

Hyunsik’s features soften, and he leans in and places a kiss to Ilhoon’s nose, still covered by his mask.

”I love you."

"Love you, too," Ilhoon whispers, his words almost inaudible. Averting his eyes again, he blindly reaches for one of Hyunsik’s hands, intertwines their fingers, Hyunsik’s skin burning hot against his own.

**Author's Note:**

> my first fic for ree's and i's very small btob fic exchange... i hope i did your otp justice and that you find some kind of joy reading this..... ♡
> 
> our exchange is open to anyone else who wants to write short, simple btob with us every now and then!! feel free to contact either [me](http://www.twitter.com/jungsilhoon) or [ree](http://www.twitter.com/bimilmp3) if you want to join; more info on [the collection account](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/btob_fic_exchange) ♡ _ ♡


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